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Discom staff suspended for inflated power bills in Pali

Bhopal: A day after TOI reported about poor villagers being slapped with inflated power bills ranging from Rs 4 lakh and Rs 15 lakh, a programmer of the Purv Kshetra Vidyut Vitaran Company was suspended, while notices were served on two engineers. Moreover, a team led by chief engineer of Shahdol circle visited Pali town on Saturday and rectified all the bills of consumers who had received inflated bills.



Even poor tribal consumers had received a bill of Rs 4.6 lakh. For example, a grocer of Pali town got a bill of Rs 15 lakh, after which he and other such people began approaching the offices of the discom in panic. Sources said that a team of discom led by chief engineer KK Agarwal organized a camp and the problems of consumers who had received inflated bills were addressed.

Managing director of the Purv Kshetra Vidyut Vitaran Company Limited V Kiran Gopal said, “Problem was found in the bills of more than 500 consumers, and they have been rectified. The consumers have been given new bills and the date of payment of dues has also been extended. It has been found that there was some problem related to one decimal point, which was ignored by the meter readers leading to such problems. But in our system there is a provision that if consumption of any consumer increases or decreases by 50% or more then the system automatically flags it, but it was ignored by our staffers. Holding the staff responsible, a programmer of the company has been suspended and notices have been issued to an assistant engineer and a junior engineer.”

However, sources from the discom told TOI, “There were some problem, as the billing work was outsourced to a private company and the company had reportedly not paid salaries to its seven workers who were employed for Pali meter reading work. These disgruntled workers manipulated the meter readings. All 7 of them have been terminated.”

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